A leaked report showed an Oath Keepers membership list that included at least 24 elected Tennessee officials, emergency response, military, and police personnel.
The Oath Keepers, a violent, far-right extremist group, is accused of playing a role in plotting the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot. The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism sifted through a 38,000-name membership list to identify hundreds of people who hold positions of authority through elected office or law enforcement. The ADL identified 890 Tennesseans who were signed up with the group.
Oath Keepers
The analysis found that the Oath Keepers' members include four elected officials, 12 law enforcement employees, three military members, and five first responders. One of the Tennessee elected officials that were identified was Steve Mead, who served on the Anderson County Commission for 12 years.
Mead, who lost reelection this year and calls himself a strict constitutionalist, said that he became a member of the Oath Keepers when it was first formed but has not been active for many years. "I don't really consider myself a member, but I probably have a lot in common with many of the members," the official said, as per The Tennessean.
The official believes in the organization's founding ideology that those in public office are bound by a lifelong oath to follow the law and the Constitution. Mead said that the members of the group have diverged from their original mission, but argued that the entire group was being demonized.
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"As citizens, we have an obligation to point out what people are doing wrong. If they are not complying with the Constitution, we need to criticize that forcefully and openly, not violently or doing anything nasty, but speaking up and being heard," said Mead.
According to WTHR, the Anti-Defamation League, however, noted that the numbers could be different because some of the members may have joined a "watered down" iteration of the group or not realized that they were joining the Oath Keepers.
Associated With Extremists
The interim deputy director of research and analysis for the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Rachel Carroll Rivas, said that both public servants and elected officials are often targeted by the Oath Keepers organization.
She noted that the process was done because of the respect that these officials bring to the organization and the legitimacy that they try to gain from the officials' involvement. However, the organization also targets these communities because they have skills that are desirable, like weapons training.
The leaked report raises fresh concerns about the presence of extremists in law enforcement and the military who are tasked with enforcing laws and protecting the United States. It is especially concerning that there are public servants associated with the far-right extremist group at a time when lies about the 2020 election continue to fuel threats of violence against lawmakers and institutions.
The report notes that even for the officials who claimed to have left the organization when it started to employ more aggressive tactics in 2014, it was important to remember that the Oath Keepers have espoused extremism since their founding. This fact was allegedly not enough to deter these individuals from signing up with the group, The Guardian reported.
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